


The Last Steps

by ladyflowdi



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-27
Updated: 2010-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:31:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyflowdi/pseuds/ladyflowdi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning of his coronation, he wakes up and rain pelts the windows, leaks through the cracks and crevices between the stone and the glass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Steps

**Author's Note:**

> My LJ-to-AO3 project continues. I wrote this early in 2010, the season before Uther's death, as meta, but I've cleaned it up a bit for AO3. The screencap that inspired the story is at the bottom. :)

The morning of his coronation, he wakes up and rain pelts the windows, leaks through the cracks and crevices between the stone and the glass. Everyone, from the servants to the knights, are dressed in finery the likes which have never been seen in Camelot. Even Merlin is dressed in a rich, deep blue velvet, resplendent and uncomfortable and aching for Arthur, who's sitting on the edge of his bed in his night shift, wrinkled and misshapen on his big shoulders, sheets caught at his waist and bare feet on the cold stone floor. 

Merlin, though, has learned not to say anything these last few weeks, not because Arthur will snap with temper but because he will be ignored. Arthur hasn't spoken a word since his father died, since he sat at his father's bedside and held his father's hand gently between both of his and told him that he loved him. And Merlin, Merlin is slightly terrified because no clothing has been brought to Arthur's chambers, and instead Arthur has laid out his usual -- red shift, dark brown trousers, his scuffed boots, his armor. Merlin feels like the biggest failure of a servant to have ever lived, to let Arthur walk out to have a crown put on his head while wearing his street clothes.

Still, when Arthur stands he doesn't say a word, because that's what Arthur has set out and that's what Merlin will help him put on. He helps Arthur wash, soapy cloth between his shoulder blades and over his neck. Once he's clean and dry, Arthur pauses at his cupboard with all the locks, and carefully takes out rich, fine golden chains for his wrists and neck, rings with enormous stones and settings for his fingers, and of course the prince's circlet for his head, set with precious stones and mushing his hair down until he brushes his bangs free. 

Arthur's hair is still damp and curling at the edges when Merlin helps him into his clothes. Trousers, shift, the padded hauberk underneath his mail and surcoat, and the steel one over it. The bracers and vambraces go next, the elbow cup and the shoulder pauldron, his rough-hewn leather belt and favorite sword, and then Arthur is ready. He looks like a little boy set out to play make-believe, wearing his father’s armor two times too big and his mum’s jewelry.

They walk out together. Everyone they pass, from the lowliest servant to the highest-ranked knight, look as if they are out of a storybook, in brocades and silks, rich fabrics that will be worn once and then never again in their lifetimes. Even his horse, Brenny, reined and waiting in the courtyard, is dressed in gleaming satin to match the prince’s coat of arms, her reins braided with the rich red flowers that grow wild all over Camelot. Arthur pauses on the last step and looks at her, at his knights on their knees waiting for their sovereign, at the nobles bowed low in respect for him, at the dozens of servants and the thousands of flower petals strewn for his feet, and at Uther’s entire council, in full regalia, on horseback and waiting for him to join them.

Arthur looks at them all for what seems like an eternity, and then he nods shortly and passes them.

The knights call out, confused, and Merlin hurries to catch up to Arthur, who’s boots sound hollow on the cobblestone, and who is – “Arthur,” he says, because the man is headed for the lower town and “Are you insane? Everyone in the entire land has come for your coronation, the town is so full one can’t even walk without bumping into someone else, surely you—”

Except he doesn’t. He is. Arthur passes the guards standing at the drawbridge, hand on his scabbard to keep his sword from swaying and bumping his legs, and cobblestone street turns into dirt, which in turn is fast becoming mud under the drizzle. Merlin hurries to keep pace with him, glancing back at the knights, at the horses they’re leading, at the women-folk and the confused servants from the castle and all of Uther’s council, looks of outrage on their faces that Merlin can’t help but find a bit amusing, in a mean sort of way. If Arthur notices he doesn’t let on.

The townspeople have come out of their homes and there is complete silence in a way that is unnatural, in a way Merlin has never heard. Even the children and babies have quieted, and the only sounds Merlin can hear are people breathing, the rustle of feathers from chickens, the metal of Arthur’s armor and clink of his chainmail, the sound of their footfalls.

It’s only when they’ve reached the center of town that Arthur stops, his entire entourage stopping with him. Merlin can hear them murmuring to themselves, can feel the sense of discomfort at this very unexpected deviation from tradition, but Arthur has often proved himself to be a man of his own mind, a man who makes his own rules.

Slowly, Arthur unlatches his scabbard, tests that the sword hasn’t caught in the leather, and then steps up to a woman – Elithia is her name, the woman who grinds the wheat that feeds most of Camelot’s lower town. “For your family.”

His voice is rough with disuse and emotion, and Merlin’s throat is suddenly so tight he can hardly breathe, let alone speak. Elithia drops to her knees, whispers, “Your highness,” but Arthur is already walking away.

Slowly, with the peace of a man walking in a dream, he takes the rings from his fingers, the chains from his neck. He helps Arthur untie his armor with shaking fingers, helps him gather it in a neat pile and set it in the arms of the new blacksmith, Jeroin. His beautiful belt, hand-sewn and so carefully designed with the Pendragon crest, goes to a young man who would never have had a chance of becoming a knight under Uther’s reign. His pendant, the same he has worn everyday Merlin has known him, goes to an elderly woman; Arthur gently, gently curls her gnarled fingers around it when she tries to give it back, and smiles at her. Merlin helps Arthur pull the boots from his feet and the shirt from his back, and watches as Arthur gives them to the poorest beggar in Camelot, a man with no name, no clothes save for the dirty scraps that cover his shoulders, and now the owner of the finest clothing in all the land.

When they reach the edge of town, where the drawbridge kisses the wilderness outside of Camelot’s gates, Arthur is naked save his trousers and his crown, barefoot as he steps onto the spring grass, still crisp underfoot. Behind him the people are weeping, and Merlin’s blood roars through his ears, his heart aching and swollen with love.

The small church sets atop the opposite hill, and the knights have come, have brought Arthur’s horse, but it’s as if Arthur doesn’t see them; his mind is as far away as his eyes. Merlin shudders, overcome with the greatness he is witnessing, with the feeling inside that sings with a million voices. He can see it in the eyes of the knights, feel how humbled they are, how terrified they are of the emotion rising in them, because this kind of love, unbidden, unrelenting, unforgiving, is something they will live for the rest of their days. Loyalty, borne within all the hearts of men, for their sovereign prince about to take the crown of time without end.

They follow him, helpless to do anything else. Is it there, in the glade outside that small church, where the northerly stream meets the river that cuts through the heart of Albion, that the ladies of Court wait. They’re ethereal in the light, as magnetic as they are mysterious, but if Arthur sees them he makes no motion. 

Arthur stops, turns to look at him. In his eyes Merlin sees everything – past, present, and future stretching out into the eons, Arthur’s name in the consciousness of the world and never forgotten. In his smile Merlin sees eternity, relentless and beautiful, and joy swallows him up.

He touches Arthur’s temples with both hands and lets his heart pour from his fingertips. 

When he is through, a crown of unspeakable beauty is sitting on Arthur’s head, magic singing through its every facet and stone, around each twined branch and across every flower. It is nature and man coiled together as delicately as glass and as strong as iron. 

For the first time in weeks the sickly pallor was gone from Arthur’s skin, the lines of grief that had aged him decades receding enough that Merlin can see his friend under the weight of the crown. For a second there is a terrifying uncertainty, until Arthur takes Merlin’s hand, presses it to his chest. Under their entwined fingers he can feel Arthur’s heart beating, steady and warm. “As long as this moves in me, and long after, you will be at my side.”

Merlin swallows, and swallows, and Arthur only smiles and reaches up to brush the tears from Merlin’s cheeks. He turns, then, to the open doors of the church where the Court waits, they as magnificent as he is plain. 

Merlin is at his side.

 

[](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ladyflowdi/media/vlcsnap-1763180-1_zps085a4a0c.png.html)


End file.
